


Susan Stayed

by Frosty_thesnowman (orphan_account)



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Children, Angst, F/M, POV Susan Pevensie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 17:06:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20049547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Frosty_thesnowman
Summary: What if Susan hadn’t followed her siblings out of Narnia the first time around





	Susan Stayed

In the eighth year of their reign, the Golden Age, Susan married a prince from a neighboring land. He was kind and handsome, and a year after their marriage their first child was born. A girl she named Helen, after her mother. A year after that her son was born, and she named him Adam. 

A month after Adam’s birth the Pevensie siblings went hunting. Susan was the only one who didn’t go, as she was still recovering from what had been a difficult birth.  
The siblings were on the hunt for a magnificent stag. The stag led them to a clearing, where a lamppost stood. They soon disappeared, back into the wardrobe. All this Susan did not know. 

Her sibling’s horses returned, laden with hunting gear, clothes and her sister’s elixir. But her siblings were not with them. Susan led a massive search for them, that lasted half a decade, but was eventually forced to conclude that they were truly gone. That they had left her.

She instead focused on her children  
and her kingdom which she now ruled alone. She had two more children; another girl and another boy. The girl she named Lucy and the boy was Edmund Peter. She led Narnia alone, facing off against the threat of the Telmarines, allying with nearby countries and making sure her country was happy and healthy. 

When she was nearing sixty she relinquished her throne to her children. Her husband had already passed and by then her eldest was thirty-five and had two children of her own. She waited until her third grandchild (her eldest son’s eldest child) was born, before she left to follow where her siblings had gone all those years ago. 

She was older now. Greying hair, poorer vision, and her knee hurt something awful when it rained. The journey was difficult. It might have been less so had she stopped at friend’s houses, but most of those friends had died years before. It took her three weeks to find the lamppost. She knew where she had to go from there.

However, when she exited the wardrobe, she found herself piled on top of her siblings, as if she had been with them all the while! In the distance she heard the housekeeper’s voice, but all she could focus on was her brothers and sister. After all those years she saw them once more!

There were immediate exclamations on both sides, as her siblings inquired as to why she was not with her children and husband, and she found herself crying whilst trying to explain that many years had passed.  
It would take nearly three hours for her to tell the whole story. That they had gone missing and that she had ruled alone, with her only family left being the one she created. She had lived to see three grandchildren born.

Although her siblings seemed happy for her, she sensed underlying bitterness. Why should she have the more years in Narnia? Why should she have the children and lover? Why should she have had a long, fulfilling life when their’s was ended so quickly? None of the questions were voiced.

———

So they went back to their past lives. Susan tried, she tried so very hard, but the first time she changed her clothing after leaving Narnia she cried. All of the scars she received from battle, all of the stretch marks from her pregnancies- gone.  
She felt like she didn’t even know herself anymore. 

There were no children to mother, she never had to offer opinions on politics (not that she remembered english politics after all these years) and she never could make her favorite Narnian dishes, as she didn’t have the spices. The books and clothes and friends she had in Narnia were gone, and she felt so alone in this foreign country that was her own.

——-

Then the train incident occurred. She nearly weeped when she saw Narnia again. There was Cair Paravel! Though anyone could see it had fallen into disrepair. No one was there and she wanted to curse her grandchildren for giving up their ancestral home. But she didn’t have time for misery when she could still relish in being home. She found her bow and arrows hidden where she last hid them. There was the tapestry she had made to commentate her sibling’s ‘death’, but there too, was the tapestry of her and her husband and children. She saw her crumbling throne and the shattered stained glass and the rotting furniture. A little piece of her that clung to Narnia died at the sight.

Ed found a piece of his chess set and she didn’t have the heart to tell him that it was probably considered someone else’s chess set by now. Peter found his sword and she stopped from telling him that she had given it to her son, and her son would have given it to his. It was no longer Peter’s sword. Lucy found the elixir and cheered, but Susan saw only her daughter’s steady hands holding the same bottle. Her siblings had been gone for so long.

Then the dwarf came and soon they were among Narnians once more. They were led by Prince Caspian. He was filled with awe when he saw her brothers and sister, legends they were, but when he saw her he smiled and said, “Hello grandmother.”

He was her many greats-grandchild. Her son’s son’s son’s son’s son’s son’s son. The Telmarines had forcefully married in to her family, and led the royal family further inland and away from the wilder areas of Narnia; away from Cair Paravel and their heritage. 

She had known time would have passed. But that it had done so was unforgivable. Why should she be a mother without children? Who gave them the right to die? They had been so young when she had last seen them. Then again, she was younger then they had been. This body was a clean slate. She saw options spread out before her that she had never once considered! Maybe it was time to give it another go.

**Author's Note:**

> I always liked the idea of Susan having getting married and having children, and it always seemed odd to me that none of the Pevensies did. I would have liked to go more in depth as to how the change effected Susan, but I don’t have the skills for that level of examination. Thanks for reading!


End file.
